Nation Brander and Communications Expert Carmelo Cutuli explains this New Profession to Italians

The Nation Brander professional figure aims to develop tools and create efficient, focused strategies and plans to improve and create congruent and positive images and ideas about a Country in order to promote it, culturally, historically and socially in a way that is favorable for creating healthy economic growth and international approbation.

International Communications and Public Relations Professional Carmelo Cutuli, an ante-litteram Nation Brander, has recently published a post explaining the role and definition of “Nation Brander”.

Cutuli, who has a 20+ years career in the field and has achieved numerous important results dealing with international promotions and has sat in on many important international organizational boards, among which, the Italian American Chamber of Commerce of Midwest (Chicago) and as General Secretary to Italy of Civitan International. Mr. Cutuli is convinced that ‘Despite the fact that Nation Branding is a somewhat specialization in the Communications and Public Relations field, it is opportune to consider it as a professional identity of its’ own.

Public Diplomacy, is a well spread discipline in the Anglo-saxon world, expecially in USA , and is an important concept in todays business and social world. Infact development and investment in Nation Branding is seen as an ever increasing asset with respect to a Country’s reputation.

The aim of Nation branding is to influence positively the perception of citizens from abroad towards a Country’s image. In a globalised world where all countries assets and liabilities are easily portraited, Nation Branding, that is strictly tidied into public diplomacy, is an essential operative tool that works towards the positive reflection of a Country’s brand image.

This professional figure aims to develop tools and create efficient, focused strategies and plans to improve and create congruent and positive images and ideas about a Country in order to promote it, culturally, historically and socially in a way that is favorable for creating healthy economic growth and international approbation.

According to Cutuli’s vision, the ideal Nation Brander has essentially a technical academic background, possibly in Economics, Communications or Marketing fields, and has operative expertise and experience in using distinctive tools for the raising of awareness in all spheres of that Country’s reputation that enable the professional to understand the positioning, strengths, weaknesses, analysis and to measure results of specific strategies.

In addition, any soft skills such as cultural and artistic sensibility may help the professional in achieving best results. In particular, journalists and communicators can be seen as ideal candidates due to their proficency in story telling and cultural knowledge.

Cutuli, believes and positively encourages the possibility of professional placement for the very smart Nation Brander, in fact for Foreign Embassies, Public Administration and Non Profit Organisation the figure of Nation Brander could very well be an important addition in advocacy of their Country’s brand image.

Furthermore Cutuli, believes that every company with international business should consider hiring a Nation Brander as a consultant, to create favorable and strategic promotional campaigns with the tools of Public Diplomacy and to help break away from unfavorable assumptions such as sterotyping and involuntary, propagation of common place mistakes related to their said Country.

With this said Cutuli mentions another important and worrying situation that is pertinent to Italy’s brand image: the growing phenomenon of the use and misinterpretation of the “Made in Italy” brand naming and the illegal elicitation of Italian sounding duplication of italian names that are being used to promote and publicise non italian products by unscrupulous foreign manufacturers illegally promoting and selling their products as being manufactured in Italy.

Cutuli, finally, underlines a Nation Brander is not only an important and useful new profession but also denotes civic commitements when helping to improve the image and reputation of his Country.